Hendryk
Banned
If you think that "attacking Constantinople" warrants eternal enmity, do look up what happened during the Fourth Crusade sometime.
Could a 'nicer' Christianity have still been influentual?
- Thread starter Derek Jackson
- Start date
Castile, Aragon, Navarra, Aquitaine, Portugal, Byzantium - all Christian nations that *had* Muslims, really. The story of medieval and early modern Christianity is one of increasing bigotry and exclusion. The Fourth Lateran Council mandated distinctive dress for Jews and Muslims because of the risk of 'good Christians' otherwise not recognising who they were dealing with. This is around 'tipping point', over the next few centuries, Muslims will be expelled from all and Jews from many Latin Christian realms. But before that time, coexistence was the norm.
Oh I'm not denying that the notion of an eternal Hell existed before Augustine but it was due to him that the Church accepted most of the ideas it had throughout its history. As for the early Churches, I'm not entirely sure of the ones which did accept Universalism but as far as I can remember, only the Church in Carthage actually preached eternal damnation at first. Interesting tit-bit, the Churches which accepted Universalism as a valid doctrine had the original Greek translations of the Gospels while those that didn't had the Latin Translations. I could provide links giving more details if you wish.
Effectively, yes it does mean all go to God. You're probably right in saying it might have hampered spreading early Christianity as "Do what we say or you'll be damned for all eternity!" Tends to get more attention than "We're all going to Heaven! YAY!" More's the pity.
As to the links, here's about three of which the third is a Wikipedia article on general Universalism:
http://www.christian-universalism.com/
http://www.christianuniversalist.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universalism
Keenir
Banned
I was pretty much ready for that part -- I had my rebuttal all set ("save Byzantium, those were all areas that were previously ruled by Muslims")...and then you added this:
I stand corrected.
thank you.
If Augustine was that crucial in establishing the idea of eternal damnation, why did the Eastern Orthodox churches, where Augustine was never an influence, also believe in eternal damnation?
Well I might be overstating Augustine's influence somewhat
. But did the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches before or after Augustine?Did they go into any info on the translation of Hell? Only a lot of times that several versions of the Bible which use Hell actually instead have mistranslated from the word 'Sheol' which means the grave.
If you could, that would be nice.
I've read some Trinitarian Universalist material (tentmaker.org primarily), but although some of their arguments are surprisingly good, others are rather weak. I was, however, greatly interested by their Calvinism--they appear to be Calvinists, but believe in the unlimited atonement and thus end up as universalists.
EDIT: Never mind, saw some links you already posted.
Keenir
Banned
the passage that they read/summarized from, told of Jesus waking up the OT prophets and others from earlier days (who, though they were in Hell, were asleep, not suffering), and being brought to Heaven.
then the program switched to a priest/scholar who said that the Gospel was rejected (among other reasons - like its date) because it removed any threat of punishment to wrongdoers.
(my reaction to that at the time:
)the passage that they read/summarized from, told of Jesus waking up the OT prophets and others from earlier days (who, though they were in Hell, were asleep, not suffering), and being brought to Heaven.
then the program switched to a priest/scholar who said that the Gospel was rejected (among other reasons - like its date) because it removed any threat of punishment to wrongdoers.
(my reaction to that at the time:
My thoughts as well... they really should have put some more thought into editing the Bible really.